Why The Best Solos Don't Start With Scales - 475

Why scales do not make solos

0:00Welcome, friends, to the Play Guitar Podcast. I'm Lee, and I'm here to help you become the guitar player that you've always wanted to be. We're talking about why the best solos don't always start with just playing scales. If you've been practicing and practicing, and you're not where you want to be yet, maybe you've got all the scales down, and every time you go to play a solo, it doesn't sound the way you want. It doesn't sound musical. Guess what?

0:32There's a lot of us out there. Most guitar players are taught that scales are the starting point for all of this stuff. If you just learn to scale, memorize the pattern, you practice that shape, somehow you're going to be able to turn all that into a great solo, but nobody tells you how to do it. You get stuck in that process. You know the scale, you don't know what to say with it. We've been doing that for a long time, and today I'm going to challenge that. I think the best solos

1:02usually don't begin with a scale pattern. Usually they begin with an idea, a musical idea. We're going to figure out what the difference is between that, and often that idea comes from the song itself, the melody, the rhythm, the harmony, the emotion from that song. The scale is very important, but the scale is really just a collection of notes. It's the family of notes that work. It's not the end result. It's not the goal you should have. So scales give you notes, but they don't give you

1:37musical ideas. They have to be arranged a certain way, but what they do is very nice. When you learn a scale, you've got options. You can do a lot of things. One of the things that I do with my coaching students is limit the amount of notes that they can use and say, make something that sounds good. Right? That always goes over real well, but you could pick any note that you want. Well, how about notes from the key that you're in, right? Play those notes that are available in the key, and you're

2:10starting to figure something out. Okay, these are going to work. Some of them are going to work better than others. Learning these scales also helps you organize the fretboard, the way they work. One, especially the pentatonics, because they're like puzzle pieces. One fits into another, into another, into another. All of a sudden now, you just got to find some landing points, and you can navigate the fretboard pretty reliably. These scale places, once you get them on autopilot, your fingers tend to go to

2:40the right places, especially if you do arpeggio work as well, too. If you're not doing arpeggio work right now, what's wrong with you? What are you doing? What are you going to work? You're on the, you're on the subway, you're in, maybe you're driving a truck. I don't know what you're doing, but working our, on arpeggios is very, very, very important, and not many people do it. If you know those, you know your strong notes. Do you really want to play guitar and play over songs and not know where the strong

3:13note, not know your destinations? Wouldn't you want to know those? I would think so. So these scales themselves, you play them, they're a collection of stronger notes and weaker notes, and once you know the order, it makes sense, but just playing them up and down, it doesn't. These scales don't create the phrases on their own. It's like letters. Letters on their own, just random letters, don't create words. These notes in the scale don't create phrases on their own. We have to figure out how

3:46they work. They're not automatic melodies, but what they do sound like, they sound like, you know, it sounds like movement. It sounds like you're going up or it doesn't sound dramatic. It doesn't sound sad or happy. It sounds like it's going down when I do that or going up. The scales have a certain sense of movement. It's the intervals that have the

4:17different sounds, the distances. Those are the things that we need to get in our ear past learning

Building a melody from chord changes

4:24scales. Okay, Lee, I got it. What do I do about this stuff? What's the first place that I can go to take these scales, these notes that are in this collection and make something great out of them? Well, what are you playing? You're usually playing a song. Unless you're just playing a backing track, then maybe you might want to listen to a song that's similar. Okay, so I'm going to make up a quick little song here. It's going to be an A minor. And I'm going to go to a D major chord.

4:56Then I'm going to go to an E dominant seventh chord back to the one minor chord.

5:07Now I'm going to make a loop.

5:15And I'm going to make something that maybe this singer would sing. I'm going to hit the fifth of the first chord. This is an E. Then when I go to the D chord, this is the fourth chord. It's got a major third in it. I'm going to play the F sharp. And then when I go to the E dominant seventh, the fifth, go back to that E. And then we're going to go back to the one chord. I'm going to do a little

5:47minor pentatonic, uh, fourth to minor thirds of the root. So let's say that's our vocal line there. I can take that little rhythm and make something completely new from it.

6:27Go back to our melody. . .

6:58. . I was using that little rhythm as a call and response so I play it at some note but I'm playing that exact rhythm and then in between I do it that you know right after that after I do it then I'll throw in some other things some connectors using the scale to connect some strong notes and that rhythm is it's almost like a call and response so I'll have the rhythm

7:29so I just took one little idea now I could take the notes from it so there's our melody again let's take these notes here

7:59guitar solo guitar solo anyway I was taking those notes

8:34and putting different rhythms to them making them longer or shorter but it starts to sound connected to the song the melody is already going to work for the song so if you take an idea from the melody of the song all of a sudden now you've got something to work with now you're not sounding like you're going up and down scales you're taking certain notes from the scales and playing them in different ways if it fits the harmony it's going to sound great if it fits the rhythm and the form of the song you are in good shape the melody already carries that identity and that's

9:10what we're trying to get we want to play something that fits you don't want to play something that doesn't fit it's going to sound like you're playing a totally different song and everybody's going to look at you funny right you make sure that it gives listeners something recognizable for the song that's what we're trying to remember we always forget about the listeners it's easy to forget about them when you're in your basement and you're just practicing guitar you're really doing it for yourself but the people that you listen to the people who you admire the people who you're trying

9:40to sound like they were playing for listeners so maybe that might be one of the differences you're not playing for listeners and they have been and you don't sound like them maybe if you started thinking well someday I might want to play this for someone maybe I should get it all together there people remember certain things about a song what do you think about a song think about what you remember about a song you might remember the cool riff you might remember the drum beat but nine times out of ten it's the melodies that people remember they don't remember the scale

10:14diagrams they don't remember finger patterns they don't remember any of that stuff and what you're going to do is you're going to take some of these ideas and get some direction from them that way you're not having to come up with something on the spot all of the time I play in I sit in with people where they just say hey I need a lead guitar player I say hey I'm going to be your lead guitar player let's do it and they play a bunch of songs I don't know what the songs are I figure them out probably you know you know give me a you know 20 seconds and I've pretty much figured out the song

10:48right and and I'm making things up to support the song and the whole thing the whole thing that's guiding me is what I'm hearing the other players play and most of the times it's the melody uh it gives me a place to begin you know so uh the chord progression gives you places to create tension and resolution as well too so if you have I did that here we went back to the one chord I did that I did a uh fourth the minor third with a little bend in it

11:21it gives a little bit of tension that was over the one chord we're going for the five chord right there right in between the two chords a little bit of tension in there and I was using that five chord going back to the one minor chord uh as an example of that there let's talk about the rhythm and the groove so in the first example I stole the rhythm and put it all over the place right uh these tell you how this should feel uh feeling

11:56is a thing to that's hard to put into words sometimes how does this feel what's the feel of this song and then everybody has a different idea but they're all hearing the same thing right so instead of beginning with what scale should I use try beginning with what's the feel what does this song sound like and that's going to give you some direction as well too every solo is is a string of many decisions and sometimes they're course corrected decisions

12:26you might make a couple decisions and you don't like the direction the avenue you're going down uh maybe you change the way you're going the song is always the best place to keep it together right okay I don't know what I'm doing but listen to that right there listen to what the the drummer's doing on the hi-hat there maybe I can take that rhythm and make something out of it uh maybe you get the vocal phrase like we had before maybe you get a hook uh maybe maybe it's a chord tone right so there's a lot of these um songs that use a major third

13:00you hear that a lot um uh you hear this this featured major third in a lot of rock songs right if I was playing one of those songs and I needed to come up with something it was I was doing fills or I was doing something in between I was doing the main solo uh I hear that I'm going for that why because that's the song that matches the song uh maybe you get a repeated note something repetitious and you know maybe if we let's see here

13:35so I might take that now I don't have to stay I don't have to stay repeating everything exactly I don't have to take the notes from the melody

14:07exactly uh I'm just taking some of the vibe from it that I started off doing it similar to what I was playing to what the melody was and then I changed it a little bit I didn't I I switched uh I didn't repeat as much right uh but but anyway what ends up happening is now I'm not guessing anymore now I'm not hoping that when I play it's going to work I know it's going to work and that's what I want for you I I want you playing guitar from a place of of uh comfort of uh confidence

14:42not a place of hoping it's going to well here goes nothing right this note might work and it might not yeah I want you to know hey I want pay attention to these chords pay attention to what we're doing you don't need to be guessing you've got material to work from another thing that happens from these scales is you can develop ideas I was just doing that I'm going to reference that melody uh and I might do it a little bit like it but I might do it indirectly as well too I might change

15:15the rhythm of the of the line I might change the ending of the line I might change the the octave the register that I'm playing it I might change the dynamics the intensity of what I'm playing all of these things make it sound related but make it different and to you it's it's a funny thing about guitar playing guitar playing deals a lot with how you feel right well I don't feel like I'm getting better or I I feel great you know and you have a great gig you everything feels great you think oh I've

15:47really got together until your next gig and it falls apart and you go oh maybe what I was feeling isn't how it really is or the thing I always talk about is um you know when you're at home practicing and you say gosh I've been practicing for three months I don't I sound exactly the same and then someone in your house says hey that sounded pretty good today also now you feel like you're you're a hundred times better are you actually any better than before what that person said to you thanks to that person that person just made you better by saying

16:20words that's awful power no you weren't you you you were getting better all along it just didn't feel that way now developing your solo keeps one foot in the song and one foot into something new that's the sweet spot right you play something completely bizarre that has nothing to do with the song it's going to be distracting if you play something that sounds just like the melody all the time it's going to get boring after a while you need to develop what you're playing this is going to keep the soul

16:50connected to the song while it adds something new this is what we're why we're doing it in the first place why do you have a guitar solo well you had a verse of course okay I like the song I'm listening I'm in right then you got another verse another course all right I got it do I need another verse another course uh I might I might turn it off and go do something no wait listen to that part here's a different part a great soul can feel fresh it can feel energizing it brings the soul someplace new

17:26but if you take it from a place that's grounded in the song it's going to feel connected it's not going to feel disconnected uh it's going to sound like it belongs there now there's another thing

Using musical devices and arpeggios

17:38that I would like for you to think about is the musical devices there are things that you can do you can put notes together in certain ways that you find show up in melodies a lot these are musical devices these things turn notes into music right when you got the scale you got an idea now you're going to need ways to develop it this is where the scale becomes very useful again we can do things to the scale we're going to get the notes supplied to us once we do things to those scales uh we can do

18:14them in a way that creates something that people like to listen to these musical devices help you organize these notes uh one is chord based devices right so arpeggios so if I'm playing over here so I was just playing arpeggios over top of those three chords I'm outlining the

18:57harmony these are the strong notes and you hear those that this is the flow of how the harmony is going to go when I play those in my solo my note so choices sound extremely intentional like I thought about this ahead of time like it they they belong in the song so knowing your arpeggios is very important surrounds and enclosures this is a thing that got a lot of jazz guys do I'm taking certain notes in this instance I'm taking I'm taking uh arpeggio notes and I'm surrounding

19:44them in a certain way uh this one I'm uh here's the root I'm going a half step behind it and a scale note in front of it listen to the tension you know where it's going to the note in the middle this gets me out of just playing the scale up and down I'm surrounding certain strong notes you

20:19can even do it on weak notes too as long as the whole idea is going somewhere so those are something to look into too uh you approach the important note from um above and below instead of landing on it directly um the other thing is chord tone targeting using the scale as like roads to get you to the strong notes aim for the notes that belong to the chord and as the harmony changes your targets change these are devices that help the listener hear what's going on you're playing the line but the

20:52chords are playing the blocks right I got a block of a chord here then I got another block here the line's going to take you through those blocks it's going to take you through the progression inside the guitar solo um so sequences these are I like sequences so those kind of things are down four and then the next note down four or these are little like little equations go up four back one up four back one and repeat it on each note

21:34of the scale um different starting points right these things allow you to repeat an idea but that you do it from a different point in the scale so your your intervals are different your harmony is different it becomes very interesting you have a common rhythm and your intervals are going through now they're if you use the scale they're part of the family so you're getting a nice selection of different interesting ideas you just repeat the idea over and over again and it alters one part of it and changes the ending changes one note it changes the rhythm sometimes too um one of the other

22:10things is question and answer I did a little bit that before you play one phrase that feels unfinished and then follow it with another phrase that does uh and you that really helps with developing the um it creates continuity it creates uh tension and release which people like to listen to uh it starts to sound like a conversation instead of a pile of notes that are thrown at you uh at the music store on saturday morning right um other thing is intervals uh thirds can sound we talked about thirds earlier

22:44you can sound very connected with different intervals you can base your whole solo around fifths right or or or or here's a flat seven you can keep repeating that same interval that was a root to a flat seventh so it had a funkier sound right you can keep repeating those sprinkle them in and it creates continuity um fourths sound good

23:15they sound kind of more open sounding a little bit more modern six are very wide it's it's a big vocal jumping melody all these notes might come from the exact same scale but the musical result is completely different so let's talk about applying this stuff the next time you practice

A new practice routine for solos

23:32and you sit down to do an improv do not begin by running this scale for 10 minutes don't do it don't and don't just hope a solo appears from it try this instead first learn or sing the melody to the song you're playing or learn one from another song if you're just using a backing track notice it's rhythm it's phrasing and it's important notes then choose one short idea from there just one it might be three of the notes it might be the rhythm it might be a pause it could be anything from there but it could be a rhythmic shape it could be the ending of the vocal

24:07phrase but start to vary that so so kind of copy it first get it under your fingers then maybe change one note of that then maybe change the rhythm of that then maybe change the ending of it then choose another musical device you can take that put it in a sequence you can do it you could you could put it outline it with an arpeggio and then play that you could approach the final note with an enclosure like we did you can move through the idea and in intervals you could you could move through it in

24:38thirds off of every note you can play it and not resolve it and create a question and answer phrase but now you're going to use the scale to find some other notes when you need them sometimes it might sound too repetitive so you might want to take another you connect some things with the scale use it as kind of a kind of a map to connect things it's a completely different process from completely running the scale pattern up and down hoping it works works and also trying to imitate just memorize

25:08other licks that you're making them this way the scale is going to support the idea instead of replacing the idea okay that was fun the best soloists do not ignore scales but they know them well and they understand that the scale is just material for them to use it's the family it's a group of notes gives you a lot of possibilities but the song will give you the direction that you need the melody is going to give you some meaning to what you're playing and musical devices help you develop

25:40those things rhythm enclosures variation this is going to be something that people enjoy hearing this is why two players can play the same exact scale over the same progression and sound completely different we've all heard that one might be searching through the pattern the other is developing an idea next time you want to improve your solos resist the urge to just go fast and go for another box or you know just go for the high note start with the song find a musical idea then use the scale to help you develop it great solos rarely sound like scale exercises great solos sound

Academy training updates

26:17like music so some cool stuff has been happening uh play guitar academy is is is uh undergoing a little bit of a change um i've changed our community which basically was just where you hang out we would meet once a week this is now the academy training dojo and one of the things we're doing in this in these weekly lessons that you get as you remember it's new lessons every week and they're just provided for you and uh what we're doing is we're separating improv from scale work

26:52scale work is just getting the collection of notes you learn the scale patterns then you use a small number of those to create some phrases in the other section connect ideas make music over the same progression we've separated this on purpose scale work is not solo work it's two different things one is opening up the fretboard the other one is making music first you got to learn where the notes are right and then you got to learn what to say with them okay i want to thank everybody for hanging

27:23out with me today i enjoyed it uh pretty soon i'm going to give you information about the training academy and all the little uh toolkits that we have coming up that's coming up probably next week okay everybody i'll see you soon bye